The Best Defense
by Neon Kitsune
Summary: I'm not the world's biggest slash fan, but Milkshake Butterfly's Defensive Strategies, which is all from Wilson's POV, seemed to need a companion piece from House's.  So here it is.  After all, a guy's got to help his buddy out.


**Summary:** It's a man's job to help his buddy out, right?

**Notes:** This is based heavily on (as in, completely stolen from) Milkshake Butterfly's "Defensive Strategies"; pretty much all the dialogue is lifted straight from there, but the POV is House instead of Wilson. I haven't a hope of emulating MB's delightful voice, but I hope I'm at least entertaining.

Also, I haven't actually been able to get hold of MB to ask if this remix is OK, so it's possible it might vanish at any time.

* * *

House was busy with the basket of fries when Wilson got back from the bathroom. They were really good fries, too, with just enough salt. House didn't even look up until Wilson announced, "I need a sign." 

He glanced up, took in that this was something Wilson actually needed to discuss, and asked, "What, like a 'voice from above' kind of sign, or a 'tasteful font and maybe some graphics' kind of sign?" Never let it be said that House wasn't willing to accommodate a friend's need to have a serious discussion. And damn, these fries were _good_.

Which Wilson could apparently tell just by looking at them, because he snuck a hand in around the side to steal one--damn lefties, always coming from the direction you didn't expect--as he replied, "Either would be nice." He looked completely unabashed by House's Death Glare and popped the fry into his mouth. When he was done chewing he continued, "But I was thinking more the second one, I admit."

House ate a few more fries (mmmm, fries...), his arm curled protectively around the basket, before he asked, "So, what would this sign say?" He was _so_ getting buddy points out of this. On top of the ones he was getting for being out with Wilson at all. It wasn't as if there was a dearth of places in Princeton where you could get a burger while staring at walls decorated with metal signs for defunct brands of motor oil, so House had decided to combine "cheering Wilson up after the divorce" with "preventing Wilson from cooking any more stuffed peppers". So far it was working, and if House's motives also included "keeping Wilson from getting that Look on his face when he thought about Julie," well, no one had to know that but House.

Wilson leaned back in the booth and said, "I don't know. Maybe, 'Not Interested,' or, 'Look Elsewhere,' or maybe just, 'Stop, Please, It's Flattering But I'm Not Ready To Date Again Now, If Ever.'"

House licked the ketchup off his fingers while he thought that one over. "You're gonna need a big sign for that last one." Was James Wilson, the man who got more action than Captain Kirk, really _complaining_ about being hit on? And hey, how cool was it that they both had the same first name? That meant House could be Bones! Not the girl Bones from that show with the Buffy guy, the cool Bones. Or Spock, who also got some from time to time, and House was definitely tall enough.

Wilson broke his train of thought by speaking. "I could write it on a sandwich board and just wear that. Then I could list other things, too, like the fact I'm oh for three in the marriage sweepstakes." OK, there was an image House hadn't needed; it was tough enough hanging around a man as pretty as Wilson without serious issues. But hey, Vicodin was really handy when it came to controlling certain automatic responses.

House realized that if he didn't say something soon it would have been too long, so he said, "That'd probably actually encourage a few of the more terminally codependent types." Cameron would be all over him.

"Well, there's still the fact that not a lot of people will hit on a guy who's wearing a sandwich board," Wilson said, but House could read the _Yeah, you'd know about co-dependent_ in his eyes.

So House leered at him. "They would if that was really _all_ you were wearing." Wilson rolled his eyes.

"You can always be relied upon to lower the tone of the conversation."

"Part of my charm," House said. But it all raised a question, so he ran up a trial balloon. "If it's really bothering you, we could stop doing this."

"No," Wilson said, a bit too fast. House stared at him, trying to figure out what had brought that on, until Wilson shifted in his seat and continued, "You were right, I do need to get out. I just wish..." He paused and gestured at the bar. There was a gaggle of girls over there who'd been doing the _Oh look cute guy_ routine at them ever since they sat down, and House was pretty sure it wasn't directed at _him_, which left Jimmy "I'm so cute I should be a puppy" Wilson as their target. "You'd think I'd be used to it, but I'm not." This with the breathtaking but completely unconscious arrogance of someone who'd been attractive his whole life.

House picked up his drink. "Think of it like trauma recovery," he said with a contemplative sip. "Stuff that never meant anything beforehand is going to be a lot harder to handle." He didn't glance at his cane, and knew without looking that Wilson didn't either--they didn't need to.

"It'll be flattering and fun again someday, but right now I just wish they'd stop," Wilson said, with a note of desperation in his voice that House didn't like at all. Especially because he was pretty sure that one of the girls at the bar had acquired target lock about five seconds after seeing Wilson and was just waiting for her chance. Which meant that Wilson needed a solution. He could...hmmm. Shave his head? "Well, you could always," he began. The picture of a cancer doctor walking in to work abruptly bald flowed through House's mind and he shook his head. "No, that wouldn't work."

Wilson sat up a bit straighter and asked, "What?"

"I was going to suggest you could try to be less attractive, but short of shaving your head completely bald, which would cause the nursing staff to have hysterics..."

"Gee, thanks," Wilson said, and slumped back in his seat again.

"It's not _my_ fault you were born looking like that. Blame your mother," House said.

"I could slouch."

"Nope."

"Wear ratty clothing?"

"Nope."

Wilson took a second to think it over. "Be mean?"

Aside from the absurdity of Wilson being able to pull that off, "Again, you'd just attract a different sort of girl. You're better off with the ones who like you because you're nice, believe me." He said this last with malice aforethought, because he knew quite well that it drove Wilson nuts when he made oblique references to Cameron, and the poor guy _needed_ a distraction, right?

"So you're saying I'm screwed," Wilson said, sounding pathetic.

"You could always wear a wedding ring."

"I didn't wear a ring when I was _married_," Wilson said defensively. House had always wondered about that, really, but he kept his eyes on the fries in case Wilson was trying to distract him. "I was always afraid I'd take it off to wash my hands and lose the damned thing."

"So just wear it when you go out," House said, raising his eyes. This turned out to be a mistake as Wilson got that left hand in there again and got away with another fry.

"I'd rather not."

Interesting. "Because it's dishonest?"

"Because..." A man that pensive shouldn't be _able _to think about stealing fries, damn it! "Because I'd rather not have the reminder," Wilson said, sounding like he was admitting to running over House's dog or something.

Just then the waitress showed up. She was cute if you liked the sort of solid look, but she only had eyes for Wilson (of course). She was making full frontal eye contact when she told them/Wilson that they/he should let her know if they/he needed _anything_, and House could see Wilson squirming--not physically, but mentally.

When she was gone, Wilson said, "See?" He sounded even more desperate.

"I saw before," House said, contemplating his burger with satisfaction. Wilson had made noises about healthy eating and ordered a salad, but it wasn't like House's liver was going to last him till he was ninety anyway so he saw no reason to deprive himself.

"Uh, House..." Wilson said. Hah. See, the man could learn. Quality over quantity! House cut the burger in half. "I get some of the salad, and you're paying half my bill," he said warningly.

"Done," Wilson said.

* * *

For the rest of the meal they talked about sports. Hank Wiggen was back to pitching, which gave House a sense of smug satisfaction matched only by the release of John Henry Giles's latest album (House hadn't had to buy it, because his copy had arrived in the mail the day before it was available in stores. Signed too. Take that, Hamilton!). House was a little puzzled about why Wilson had decided they needed to hang out in restaurants instead of on his couch if all they were going to do was talk to each other about sports, but he shrugged and went along with it. It made Wilson feel better and did indeed avert the arrival of any more stuffed peppers, so it was worth it. 

But there was the whole irresistably-attractive-to-women thing, which House tried very hard not to resent even as he kinda pitied Jimmy for it, and when he came out of the restroom House could see from yards away that Wilson had gotten himself into a spot.

Not that the girl, who was looking up at Wilson through her eyelashes in a way that pretended to be coy but wasn't, was anything to sneeze at. She had lovely curly dark hair--House freely admitted that he had a thing for brunettes, though he preferred straight hair (like Stacy's, he thought in the back of his mind, so dimly he almost didn't wince)--and a body that just wouldn't quit and that she was taking ruthless advantage of. Her friends were playing wingman, hanging back so as not to foul her sightlines but available for covering fire if needed.

House got into earshot just in time to hear Wilson, with the air of a man who knows the missiles are faster than he is, saying, "Actually, I work just down the street, at the hospital."

That was it. Jimmy needed to be saved from himself, and there was one option House hadn't mentioned earlier because he hadn't thought Wilson would go for it. But desperate times called for desperate measures, so as the girl started saying something about Wilson being a doctor, House stepped into his friend's personal space, put his free arm around Wilson's waist, and said cheerfully, "Sorry, he's taken."

For a moment, while the startled girl stared at them, House was sure Wilson was going to (no pun intended, he smirked) queer the pitch by pulling away or demanding to know what the hell he was doing. But then House felt him get hold of himself. And Wilson was better at this lying thing than he wanted to believe, because he turned his head just enough to get House in the corner of his vision, sighed, and said, "She wasn't--"

"No, I'm sorry," the girl said. She bestowed a slightly stunning smile on Wilson, who looked away from it; House tried to communicate that Wilson was _not helping_ but he knew the boy was doing the best he could. "I...It was nice meeting you," the girl said, and zoomed off for neutral airspace. House and Wilson watched her go. She was slightly battered but far from out of the action, and with that chassis she wasn't going to have _any_ trouble finding a new partner to dogfight with.

"Oh, you owe me for that," House said when she was safely out of earshot. He kept his arm where it was in case the wingmen were still watching.

Wilson turned to face him, apparently not realizing just how close together they really were. "For pretending you're getting to have sex with me?" Wilson asked. "I think the debt-burden there is on the other side."

Yeah, right. House waggled his eyebrows suggestively. "Well, I suppose really that depends on who's on top."

Rolling his eyes, Wilson said, "Okay, I did not need that image. You going to let go of me any time soon, or do we walk to the car like this?"

"Well _that_ would certainly get the rest of the women here to leave you alone--not merely gay, but _clingy_."

"In this scenario, you'd be the clingy one."

"Might be worse. Gay with a clingy boyfriend who owns a _stick_, very bad idea to hit on." He hefted said stick in illustration.

House just couldn't resist grabbing Wilson's ass as he let go. Aside from it fitting his role, it was a very nice ass. Maybe not as nice as the girl's had been, but Wilson's ass was here and hers wasn't.

"Hey!"

"Playing to the crowd," House said loftily, and headed for the door.

Wilson trailed after him, sighing, "House..."

"Well, you wanted a sign," House said reasonably. "There you go. Neon, ten feet high," he added. He could almost see the sign, floating in the air above Wilson's head. It was kinda like when he was imagining the chemical reactions inside a patient's body. Poisons were always putrid green, for some reason.

"I'm thinking the wedding ring idea might be better than having you grope me everywhere we go." Wilson persisted as they stepped outside. It was cooler than it had been when they went in, but thankfully not cold enough to set House's leg complaining.

"You sure?" House asked.

Wilson thought that over for a second as he was fishing the keys out of his pocket. "No," he said finally.

House wasn't really sure what to say to that.

* * *

When he thought about it later, it occurred to House that there was probably some other, much simpler universe in which that was the end of it, just one more Housian antic for Wilson to roll his eyes about. Wilson would get over Julie and start dating again and end up with Little Woman #4; House would go back to spending his days twitting Wilson over the affairs he knew quite well Jimmy wasn't actually having; they'd stay friends and that would be the end of that. 

That universe was almost undoubtedly less interesting, if a little easier to live in, but it didn't matter because House was living in this one and he hated hypotheticals.

House had stuck with Operation Make Wilson Gay for almost a week. It was such fun being able to run his foot up Wilson's leg under the table--aside from the shock value, which was worthwhile in itself, House got a kick out of pretending someone as attractive as Wilson was _his_. As someone who'd been comfortable in his own bisexuality since college, House was perfectly OK with people thinking he was gay; it was just cool that they _also _thought Wilson was willing to sleep with him. And hey, Wilson's leg felt nice even through trousers and socks, so that was a bonus too. He was genuinely disappointed when Wilson called it off. House had to fall back on the old standbys (otherwise known as Cuddy's breasts) to keep his shocking-others quota up to snuff.

But then they went out to Terry's one night, and ran into the girl with the impressive chassis again.

They were sitting at the bar, because there wasn't anywhere else to sit while they waited for a table and standing for half an hour wasn't an option; it had been a bad day on the leg front. House sat waiting for the onion rings they'd ordered, wishing he could spin on the stool but glumly aware that, at some point, he was going to have to get down off the damn thing. The discomfort was already starting to build in his lower back.

They were deeply embroiled in a discussion of the menu when someone cleared their throat behind them and Wilson turned to see who it was. House perked up his ears at the slightly strangled tone of Jimmy's greeting. He turned just enough to be able to see the person over his shoulder, a little annoyed to note it was the Ace Gunner from a couple of weeks ago. She was trying a little harder tonight, it looked like.

"Well, well, if it isn't the doctor. Or, excuse me, the _taken_ doctor," she said. House sighed to himself, because she had Jimmy pegged to perfection; that mix of seduction and scorn was going to get to Wilson's balls faster than seduction alone ever could have. He narrowed his eyes at her, but she was not affrighted and dismissed him with a flick of her gaze.

"You lied to me," she said to Wilson. This time she sounded a little wounded, and House had to restrain himself from clapping. She really did have technique, he had to give her that.

Wilson looked trapped. "I...what?" he managed.

"I've been asking around," she said. House sat up a little straighter as she moved in to put a hand on Wilson's lapel. "You could have just said no. You didn't have to make me think I was an idiot."

Wilson rallied admirably, though. He even leaned back a little. "I'm...not sure what you mean."

The Ace Gunner was not impressed and she let her hand drop. "You two are _not_ an item. I hear he attended your wedding." Which, oh crap. Who had she been talking to? Well, Wilson had told her about the hospital, and PPTH was closer to that other bar than Princeton General or Saint Sebastian's. This was one to keep an eye on, clearly.

"That doesn't actually mean anything," Wilson said. House could see him tensing to flee, which was a good instinct as a stopgap but wasn't going to solve the larger problem. If the arm-around-waist thing hadn't done it, what was next on the scale...?

"Please. I think in the very least you should owe me dinner," Ace replied.

House judged that Wilson was out of ideas. Time for Jimmy to get his own wingman. "You know, there's an easy way to settle this," House said. They both turned to look at him, which made House's job a little easier. He smiled and watched Wilson's eyes flicker with unease.

House leaned forward and grabbed Wilson by the lapels, the better to drag him over and kiss him.

The reason Wilson was so popular, House decided, was that he was a creature of reflex. Take the way Wilson's lips had parted under his, even though the man was clearly stunned. Or the fact that he probably didn't even realize he'd put his hands up to clutch House's biceps.

It was really too bad Wilson was straight, because this was the kind of kiss that meant _someone_ should really be getting some action later that night. Especially given that they'd been, essentially, dating for most of a month.

They broke for air. Wilson had a very strange look on his face that House nonetheless recognized because he had it himself fairly often: that was someone who'd just had a realization. While Wilson was busy processing the whole "dating for most of a month" thing, House looked around to see that most everyone in eyeshot was staring at them, including Ace. He ran a general glare over the crowd. "What, is this something you've never seen before? Do none of you get cable?" he demanded. Geez, you'd think two guys kissing was like a unicorn or something.

People looked away. Good.

Just then Wilson let go of his arms and Ace choked out, "Fine." This retreat was in rather worse order than the first one had been, though House gave her a five out of five for effort and an amazing ass.

Wilson didn't say anything for a while, and he wouldn't quite meet House's eyes.

"Don't worry, I know you'd do the same for me," House said around a sinking feeling in his stomach. Maybe he hadn't thought that out as well as he should have. "Well, okay, maybe not, but in any case, any response would of course be purely Pavlovian, and I'm not going to attach any real significance to it. And hey, look," he said, as movement caught his eye, "the gods of timing are smiling for once, because I see our waitress and she's bearing onion rings. Think they're ours?" He stopped himself there rather than continuing to babble.

Their booth was ready at last, so House clambered down off the stool, appreciating the way Wilson stood close enough that he could lean on him without having to admit he needed to. His side tingled at the contact in a way he was very careful to hide, because Wilson didn't need to be any more freaked out than he already was. House led the way to the booth hoping he hadn't just screwed up completely.

* * *

The waitress was at least not a moron, because she didn't bat an eye when they asked for extra plates with their meal orders. She must have gotten an eyefull of the kissing. It was always nice to have competent help, not that House would know given the state of his underlings. 

House was very careful to avoid any discussion that could be remotely construed as being about the kissing. Maybe if he just gave him long enough, Wilson would deal with it and they could go on without having to _talk._ House hated _talking_. He still licked dipping sauce off his fingers, though, because he wanted to and because he would have done it even before the kissing and Wilson knew that perfectly well.

House wasn't so arrogant as to believe that one kiss from him was going to convert Wilson to liking men. This opinion was confirmed when one of Ace's wingmen went past, slowing down a little to give them plenty of time to appreciate her poor opinion of them. Wilson (and House) watched her go, because if her chassis wasn't quite on a par with Ace's it was still nothing to be sneezed at. So Wilson was a creature of instinct, and had responded instinctively, and besides it had probably been a while for him, because Saint Jimmy was not going to avail himself of the services of a professional--and Wilson had easily twice the libido House did even _off_ the Vicodin. Though House had to admit it had been a while for him too, in the sense that hookers were great if you just needed to get off, but there was something to be said (though his status as a man prevented him ever saying it out loud) for sex with a person who you didn't have to pay and who knew more about you than your credit rating.

The problem was that Wilson kept losing the thread of the conversation and having to pick it back up again. Not many people would have noticed, but House had been hanging out with Wilson a long time.

In the middle of correcting one of Wilson's manifold misapprehensions about batting stats, House happened to meet his eyes and catch him jumping. But right about then the food arrived, which would at least give Wilson an excuse to be distracted. They put their extra plates to use without too much wrangling over how much steak was worth how much pasta, because by now they'd sort of worked out the equivalencies.

Eventually, though, it became clear that Wilson was just picking at his food. House debated with himself. OK. Time to try it. "I said it didn't mean anything," House pointed out.

"And I heard you. I'm... I'm not bothered by it, House." Which was bull, and House didn't bother trying to hide his skepticism. "No, really. I'm not bothered by it," Wilson insisted. "I just...She creeped me out," Wilson said, sipping at his drink. House thought it over. It wasn't the truth, but it would do for now.

To get things closer to normal, House took one of Wilson's shrimp.

* * *

House studied the dessert menu. Places like this could always be counted on to have something overpoweringly chocolatey, suitable for use as building materials and mortar shells, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound...and there it was. He ordered it. Then he heard Wilson order more sofa and sighed. Perhaps Jimmy was even more rattled than he'd thought. 

"You realize you just ordered a couch," House told him, and Wilson did that blushing thing he was so cute doing which made House have to think about naked ugly people and curse the Vicodin for falling down on the autonomous-response-controlling job. "I know what he meant," the waitress said tolerantly, and departed.

Wilson had not ordered any dessert of his own, the foolish mortal. "You're not getting any of my cake," House warned him.

"I don't want any of your cake," Wilson replied, perhaps a hair too fast. House eyed him, wondering what the hell that had meant.

But the cake came quickly and it was everything House had dreamed it would be. He attacked it, making faces to demonstrate to Wilson what he was missing. Out of deference to Wilson's straight-boy sensibilities he tried to keep the moaning to a minimum, but there was only so much any man could be expected to do when faced with a food that had obviously been prepared in the kitchen of God Himself.

The waitress showed up to get Wilson's card--only one check, guess the folks at the register saw the kissing too--while House's eyes were closed against a particularly heavenly bite of his cake, but he opened them in time to notice that Wilson had been staring at him and didn't want him to realize it. Plus Jimmy had been shifting a bit over the course of dinner. House thought about that and decided to run a little experiment.

He finished his cake, complete with scraping the plate and licking the spoon blissfully, and sure enough, by House's count that was the third time Wilson had had to talk himself down. Interesting. But the cake was finished and Wilson still wasn't saying anything, seeming much more interested in tapping a spare straw against his glass, so House shrugged and grabbed his cane. "Meet you at the car?" he asked, jerking his chin towards the restrooms to make his meaning clear. Wilson just nodded, so House struggled out of the booth and headed for the men's.

* * *

House was at the sink when the door opened and he caught a glimpse of Wilson in the mirror. Which was odd, but oncologists had to pee too and sometimes it didn't hit you till you stood up and...Wilson was wedging the door shut. Oh boy. House dried his hands, balled up the paper towel and tossed it into the trash can--two points, nothing but net--before he spoke. "You know," he said, forcing a lightness he didn't feel, "I _knew_ you weren't fine with it." 

"I'm not--" Wilson began, but he seemed to run out of momentum and House did not close his eyes but he was so, so afraid because of all the places he wanted to have the fight that would finally end their odd friendship, a restaurant bathroom was not even in the Top Ten list. "It's..." Wilson tried again, and ended up just staring at House, swallowing after a moment.

House tilted his head and gave him a smile that he hoped wasn't too bitter.. "Well, this is going to be fun. We could try charades. Or maybe you could write it on a note and pass it to me. You know, this was the reason I was going to wait until we got to your hotel..."

Wilson's voice was odd and flat when he replied, "I'm not sure I'd have managed the car ride home."

Oh. House stared at him, his stomach twisting in a way that had nothing at all to do with his dinner. He managed to keep it off his face, at least, but what he was thinking was, nice job, asshole. You managed to completely screw this up and he doesn't know how to be friends anymore. Perfect. He started limping for the door, trying not to mutter. "Well, we can call a cab," he began, but that was as far as he got before Wilson grabbed him by the jacket, pushed him up against the wall, and kissed him, hard.

House froze for a second, but then he realized how good it felt as Wilson pressed into him (on the left, always on the left if you please), and Wilson's tongue was in his mouth and it felt like the most natural thing in the world to bring his free arm up and wrap it around Wilson's waist. House moaned into Wilson's mouth as the other man let go of his jacket and ran his hands down his chest, then up under the hem of his t-shirt. House could feel his skin quivering in response to the touch and he could feel Wilson grinning against his lips and he could feel, even through the layers of both their pants, that Wilson liked where this was going and he could feel his own erection rapidly firming in response. He fought to keep from outright whimpering when Wilson's fingers started to skate along the waistband of his jeans. Wilson leaned into him a little harder and House shifted to drag across Wilson's erection and that moan was probably the sexiest thing House had encountered all week, even including Ace Gunner and her wingmen.

Which thought bought him a little breathing space under the rising tide of pleasure, because Wilson was straight and really it must have been even longer than House had thought; perhaps Julie had stopped putting out at the end. And House was having a good time, really he was, but he didn't want to be Wilson's consolation prize. So he unhooked his arm, made sure he had his balance, and pushed Wilson away.

While Wilson was adjusting to the sudden change, House had time to get his expression under control. He realized the effect was a little spoiled by his lips being swollen and his breath coming in gasps, but attitude was everything and he could do this. Even if he couldn't quite meet Wilson's eyes.

The silence stretched out until House realized he was going to have to be the one to break it. "Okay," House finally said, and the bits of Wilson he could see at the edges of his peripheral vision looked absurdly grateful. "That was not what I expected."

Wilson licked his lips, which didn't do much for House's composure. "I told you I didn't have a problem with it."

"No, you did. Just not the problem I _thought_ you had." Like the problem where you haven't touched anyone but yourself in months and I'm here and I'm your friend and you of all people will have worked out that the love of my life having been female doesn't mean I'm incapable of appreciating men...

Wilson had that look that he got when he was going to force House to spell something out. House was never sure whether he did that on purpose or if he really was that dense sometimes. "So what problem is it I'm supposed to be having?"

House would have given a lot for a lightning bolt to come down from the God he didn't believe in and smite him just enough that he went into arrest for just long enough for all the brain cells containing the memories of this night to die. But it didn't happen, so he was going to have to actually talk. He fixed his eyes on a spot just outside the wall behind Wilson's shoulder. "I... appreciate...that it's been a while, and that you could read a certain clear interest in the earlier events and so it might have seemed like here was a nice, safe solution to your libido issues--"

"Oh God, not _this_," Wilson groaned. He covered his face with his hands and House blinked at him, genuinely stumped.

"What?"

"I don't believe that you're stupid enough to actually believe that," Wilson said. Which didn't make any sense at all.

"And _I_ don't believe that you're gay enough to be kissing me in restaurant bathrooms for any other reason," House retorted.

"That's because I'm _not_ gay," Wilson said, sounded both light and completely serious.

Well, duh. "See?"

"I'm just not straight. I figured it out over the pasta."

House leaned back against the wall. This standing thing was not making him happy. "I have had people tell me less plausible things, but that is _only_ because I'm a doctor."

"House..." Wilson said, taking a step forward, "This isn't about sex." He thought that over. "Well, it's not _entirely_ about sex."

House tried not to stare at him like a clinic patient attempting to pass off an STD as poison ivy, but he was pretty sure he failed because Wilson sighed and said, "All right, let's try it this way: we've been flirting for years."

"Well--yeah. Okay. But you never meant it," House said, keeping the accusatory tone out of his voice with an act of sheer will.

"Funny," Wilson replied, lifting his eyebrows, "I always thought _you_ never meant it."

House fell back on being analytical because feeling was just going to get him in trouble if he kept doing it. He ticked the points off on his fingers. "And if I thought you didn't mean it, and you thought I didn't mean it, and we still kept doing it, that really means that neither of us meant it and it meant nothing."

"Or that it meant everything," Wilson said, quietly.

House hesitated, taking a deep breath before saying, "I find the former more likely."

"More likely, or more safe?" House didn't look up, but he tensed slightly as Wilson did some personal-space invading of his own--just a little too close, but under the circumstances it might as well have been full body contact. "All right, I admit that a whole lot of what's going on here is me wanting to pin you against a flat surface and do some exploring, but that's not everything." Damn. Jimmy sounded like he actually believed that, which meant House was going to have to be the sane one. He forced himself to meet Wilson's eyes. What he saw there made him sigh and look back at the other man's chest. Much safer that way, even if the tie was boring.

"And that," House said, drawing the word out for a second, "would be the other problem." It had occurred to him that Wilson probably hadn't thought all this through, beyond the whole up-against-the-wall thing, but House had had six years of _having_ to think about it.

"And which 'that' are we dealing with now?"

"Mechanics," House said, trying to put enough spin on it that for once Wilson would twig on his own.

"Mechanics," Wilson repeated blankly.

So much for that hope. "As in, who's on top, who's on bottom, who's on first, what's on second, what's _in_ second, and given the pasta-based timing of your little revelation I'm going to take it as a given you've never actually _done_ this with another man." Not that House had either, at least not since the infarction, but he _had_ had sex and he assumed the principles transferred between genders.

"Oh. Um. No," Wilson said, and again with the blushing!

House leaned on the wall, eyebrows raised, trying not to show how tired all this was making him. Next to his shoulder someone tried the door and cursed when it didn't open, which didn't manage to break the ice right away. But at last Wilson said, "That doesn't matter to me." House couldn't stop the bitter smile when he replied, "Of course it wouldn't. To you." Because no matter how sympathetic Wilson was, no matter how much he saw, no matter how many scrips he wrote, he still wasn't the one who'd had to discover the hard way (no pun intended) that he didn't get to be on top anymore. _That_ had been an entertaining evening, in its own exquisitely painful way.

Wilson closed his eyes. "House..." He opened his eyes and managed to catch House's. "You're saying you don't want this."

"I'm saying..." How to put it? "This is a bad idea."

"We've had worse. I think my marriages qualify, for a start." Which was true and mildly amusing, but under the circumstances it wasn't really enough to break through.

Time to get a little more information; he couldn't be expected to come up with a diagnosis without information. Maybe he could still come up with some way to talk Wilson out of this without hurting his feelings. "What do _you_ think you want?" House asked. The question made Wilson look down again, which was good.

"I... don't know. I want... Really, anything that you want sounds good right about now," Wilson said, and maybe the looking down thing wasn't so good because Wilson took the last little step forward, leaned down, and started licking House's collarbone. House tried and failed to keep his eyes open, and certain parties below his belt perked back up from having been lulled into semi-quiescence by all the talking. House could practically feel the blood rushing south. "Oh, please don't do that," House said, but he could hear the quality of his own voice and knew it wasn't exactly convincing.

"Why not?" Wilson mumbled around a mouthful of collarbone.

"Because," House began, and paused to get all the words in the right order. He was going to have to say this fast if it was going to come out at all coherently. "Because all the blood rushes towards the head _without_ a brain and I can't think clearly enough to remember why this is a bad idea and I should stop you."

"So you _do_ want me," Wilson said, and House could tell he was smiling. Smug bastard. He sighed. 

"What kind of an idiotic question is that? Of course I want you." House paused. "Everybody wants you. Nurses, accountants, other doctors--of _both_ genders. Cashiers at grocery stores and waitresses at restaurants. You're a walking, talking wet dream, and the worst of it all is that you're so _nice_. It's like a fantasy come to life. _Everybody_ wants you. That's how we got into this mess in the first place, remember?" That sounded more like himself, he thought, but he wasn't expecting the effect it had on Wilson, who suddenly pushed away and half-turned. House just stared at him, trying to process.

"_That_ got you to let go?" And there it was, the piece of information that made all the rest of them fall into place, and as always he knew what an idiot he'd been to not see it before. Wilson thought House only wanted him because he was beautiful and nice, when really House wanted him because he was _Wilson_. It had just never occurred to him that Wilson might really, legitimately want him too.

"You were right, this was a bad idea," Wilson said tightly, and made for the door. House put more of his weight on the wall and snapped his cane up to block Wilson's path, because he wasn't going to let this go that easily, not after all the pushing Wilson had done.

"If you were a patient, this would be the part where I told you what was wrong with you." Wilson closed his eyes like a man listening to the firing squad saying "Aim". "You're not a patient," House continued. Wilson's eyes stayed closed, but at least he was breathing. "And this isn't the hospital. And as... easy as it would be to let you go out that damned door..." House could hardly believe he was going to say this, but it had gotten Wilson to open his eyes. "Talk to me."

"Is that an order?" Wilson asked, in that way he had when he wanted to be angry but couldn't quite make it.

"Would you be more likely to do it if I asked nicely, used your name, said 'please'?" House made a conscious effort to keep his tone low and gentle, because Jimmy was wound up so tight he was likely to break if House wasn't careful.

"I... House...It..."

"What?"

"Not here. I'll talk to you, but not here." Fair enough, House thought, because if they didn't get the door open soon someone was going to come along with something bashy to do it for them and that would just be no fun at all, and House was hardly in any state to climb out the window.

"All right. My place or yours?" he asked, trying for levity. He hoped desperately that Wilson would pick his place; he needed the comfort of his own space and if worse came to worst it was easier to throw Wilson out than to try to get back to his place from the damned hotel, which anyway hardly even counted as living space, much less a home. But Wilson would be making the same calculations.

"Yours," Wilson said, and House had to smooth the surprise off his face before Wilson saw it.

"Okay," House said, and unblocked the door.

* * *

Wilson handled the looks they got on their way out of the restaurant with considerably less aplomb than a man who'd been hanging out with House for over a decade should have. House, meanwhile, just ignored them. The drive back to the apartment was awkward, though, which was saying something for a man who regularly forced people to admit adultery and had once asked a man if he was screwing his fifteen-year-old daughter in front of no fewer than ten witnesses. Things were not helped by the fact that they'd brought the Corvette rather than Wilson's heap, and House had had occasion to think that, since he had the perfect vehicle for it, the phrase "sex on wheels" really ought to get a little more literal at some point. 

They got inside without untoward incident, but then they stood there for a few more rounds of the no-eye-contact tango before House sighed and asked,"Want a beer?"

"I think I'm better off doing this sober," Wilson admitted.

House grunted in agreement as he stripped off his jacket and tossed it on the couch, listening for the pill rattle with a practiced ear. A few more days yet before he'd have to bug Wilson for another scrip--which of course he'd already known but it was nice to have confirmation. House got himself situated on the piano bench while Wilson took his own jacket off. The piano bench was a refuge, of a sort, though House was reluctant to think of it in those terms. Wilson, meanwhile, stood in the middle of the room with his hands in his pockets, looking horribly awkward and gazing fixedly at the leg of the bench.

A little annoyed that he was going to have to prod, House said, "Well?"

"I--" Wilson began, then broke off and licked his lips.

"You said you'd talk," House pointed out.

Wilson pouted and said, "You're usually better at this."

"I'm usually not--" House began, then broke off but he knew it was already too late. Wilson didn't want to admit it, but he was just as interested in the puzzle as House was and would pry at the corners until he worked out what was going on.

"Not what?"

"_You_ talk. _Your_ issues. That was the deal," House said, hoping to get out of it through sheer aggression.

"I'm not so sure our issues separate out that neatly."

Damn him. "I usually don't _care_ that much. You--" House paused. This was something he needed to get out, no matter how much it hurt. "You matter." Which at least got Wilson to sit the hell down, so not completely useless. But then no one said anything for a while again. House was getting very tired of having to break silences.

"Should I begin?"

"I... No. I just need to..." Wilson paused and tipped his head back, staring at the ceiling.

"You have to know that everybody likes you," House pointed out, in his most reasonable tone.

"Of course I know that. I--" Wilson sighed again and looked back at House. "The thing is, they _don't_. Everyone I've ever known who _liked_ me has done it because of... all that. The fact that I'm attractive, and nice, and successful, and... the good guy." As opposed to his best friend, the cranky cripple. "I don't know if any of them ever actually like me for anything _but_ those things. Or if, once you took all of that away, they'd vanish too."

House felt a wave of something very like relief, because if that was really _all _Wilson was worried about, that was easy to fix and he knew the perfect thing to say. "Except me."

"Except you," Wilson agreed. House watched him relax another notch. "I...I want you. But I want you to want me for more than just..."

House gave him a small, sad smile. Poor Jimmy, thinking people only liked him for his looks. "Not just another pretty face?"

"It seems kind of stupid, doesn't it."

House watched him carefully for a long moment. "No, it doesn't," he finally said, and got himself up off the piano bench. Given the bar stool and the bathroom and all, there was no way he was going to be able to do this standing, so he leaned most of his weight on the arm of Wilson's chair, leaned over, and kissed him. Wilson's eyes fluttered closed. House gave himself a few moments, then pulled back and said, "It was never about that for me." But all of a sudden it was too warm, too close, and he got to his feet again and as he headed for the couch the fact that being warm could frighten him so much made him realize the real reason this was never ever going to work no matter how tempting it was. "This is still a bad idea," House told Wilson, praying that Jimmy wasn't going to get up and follow him because he really didn't feel like locking himself in the bathroom like a five-year-old.

Wilson seemed to realize it, but instead of conceding the point he said, "I still say we've had worse."

"Do you know how this will end?" House asked, staring at the floor. He was trying to look nonchalant, sprawled on his couch like this was any other night, but he had a feeling his body language wasn't cooperating.

"What says it has to?" Wilson challenged him.

God, Wilson just wasn't going to give this up and, once again, he needed it spelled out for him. "My luck. Your history. Both our sets of respective issues. The odds. My bitterness. Your loneliness. The way I push people away and you can't seem to help drawing them near. My--"

"Stop," Wilson said flatly.

Figuring he'd given enough examples, House just said, "The point is... this can't work."

"You don't know that," Wilson said, meeting House's gaze, but House was busy examining the most probable outcomes. Some of them were abysmally bad, though a few were merely horrific.

"And when it falls apart, neither of us will have the temperament to go on from there in any way approaching civil. It'll be a disaster and one of us will have to move to Detroit." _No, not Detroit_, a little voice screamed in the back of his mind. He hadn't seen that movie in way too long.

Wilson gave him a little smile. "I think we might be able to get away with Pittsburgh."

"No, definitely Detroit at the least." House said. How could Wilson not know that there was no way that breakup could ever be anything but a natural disaster? "And that's only if it goes fairly well; there are some scenarios that end with one of us moving out of the country."

"I think you're exaggerating," Wilson said, still trying to be Little Mary Sunshine or something and couldn't he see that this whole thing was like a knife to the gut?

"Or else you just _want_ to think that. You always go into relationships telling yourself that it'll work out, that this time it'll be the one. The only difference is, this time I _know_ I'm not the one, and I'm not afraid to tell you that," House countered, holding on to an even tone by the skin of his teeth.

"But you are afraid. Of this. Of what could happen if it _did_ work," Wilson said.

After a second, House got enough sense together to ask, "Aren't _you_?" Because of course House was terrified. He'd _had_ the once-in-a-lifetime love, and it had gotten him a missing thigh muscle, a bunch of sparring sessions with Marky Mark, and a rat. And while House liked Steve McQueen a lot and was happy to have him, somehow a rat wasn't quite a compensation for the things he'd lost when Stacy had walked out on him. And Wilson was, as Cuddy had once said, "All his friend", and if he managed to drive Wilson off the way he'd driven Stacy, then what was he going to do? He really didn't think Cameron would make an acceptable substitute, if only because he'd have to teach her about baseball.

And House wasn't sure he was ready to get used to waking up with someone beside him again, not when he'd just gotten his life back into a groove he could stand to struggle through. He didn't want to have to find a new hospital administrator who would put up with him (because if it came to that he was not going to let Wilson be the martyr who moved out of town, even if Cuddy didn't pitch him out of PPTH on his ass and throw his cane after) and he didn't want to have to move his piano and he didn't want to get used to listening to someone else breathe again because once you did that, if they left the bedroom was so terribly quiet after.

The problem, he admitted, was that he _did_ want to hear Wilson breathing beside him, which meant it was already too late and every night he spent without that sound from here on out was going to be just as quiet as the ones he'd spent after Stacy left.

He realized Wilson was grinning, and couldn't keep the incredulous look off his face. Wilson sounded almost cheerful when he said, "Am I afraid? Terrified. But I wouldn't pass up the opportunity for anything." House just stared at him till Wilson said, "I mean that."

House rolled his eyes, trying to recover some control of the situation. "Did they drug the pasta?"

Still grinning like the insane person he had to be, Wilson got up. "You'd better hope not. You had some too--in fact, the way you were stealing my shrimp, I think you had slightly more." He moved to the couch--House did not bolt, but mostly because standing up quickly was not something his couch was designed for--and sat down. Anyway he wasn't sure he wanted to bolt, which worried him.

"I'm not lying to myself, House," Wilson told him. "I'm not expecting some fairy-tale romance and happy ending. I think a lot of the time it's going to suck, because you're frankly a bastard and I have... my own issues. But on the other hand..." Wilson pried one of House's hands away from his body, uncurled it, and kissed the palm. "Are you going to tell me it's _not_ worth it?"

"You're not going to take no for an answer, are you?"

"If you honestly tell me that you don't want this... I'll leave," Wilson said. "And we can... try to go back to the way things were." Which was going to happen in the same universe where Ace Gunner had acquired some other target. Wilson met House's eyes. "But...You've always told me you _never_ lie. Well?"

Damn. Jimmy had some technique too. Because now he had to either put up or shut up and Wilson's eyes were so open and trusting and House could tell that he had about a half second in which he _could_ still get out of this and by the time he'd finished thinking about it that half second was past. "Oh, _hell_," he finally said, and grabbed Wilson by the shoulders to kiss him properly.

Wilson, it seemed, had decided that if he was going to give up on being completely straight he was going to go, you should pardon the expression, the full monty. Because he'd started out with a hand braced on House's good thigh, but as they shifted to work out balance Wilson slid that hand up and oh, hello, I'm very pleased to meet you. House gasped and moaned; Wilson seemed to take that as encouragement and tried out a few other things which House was not even going to _try_ to stop him doing.

House leaned back to get a better angle and Wilson, who had never had a problem with either garlic or sunlight but nonethless appeard to have a thing for necks, fastened onto House's jugular again. "You know," House said, just to prove he could still talk, "we still haven't worked out that who's on top thing..."

"You always have to complicate things," Wilson said, his voice muffled. 

"Part of my charm," House murmured, having found an angle he liked a lot, thank you very much. "Hey," he added, "Do you think you could still try that wearing only a sandwich board thing?"

Wilson stopped what he was doing (which was totally unfair) and gave House a long stare. "You realize you're weird, right?"

House smiled at him. "Weird works for me."

* * *

**Coda**  
...**  
**

The fallout from that night continued, of course, for years, but the last time House really thought about it much was a little over a month later. He arrived in the clinic to find Wilson so they could go home (and his own clinic duty for that day was done, so he was safe from the Wrath of Cuddy), only to find Jimmy face-to-face with Ace Gunner, who was wearing a nametag that dubbed her Dr. Charmaine Larue. House instantly laid a bet with himself that she was from south of the Mason-Dixon line, with even odds on Louisiana and Mississippi.

House got there just in time to hear Wilson ask, "You're _really_ a--", but the deja vu ended there because this was work and House really didn't see the need to fire up the rumor mill now that there actually _was_ something going on, so he refrained from putting his arm around Wilson's waist. And there was Cuddy, joy of joys, except that for once she looked as if she might actually be willing to help out so House caught her eye and made "Get rid of her" faces at his boss.

"So, you about done here?" House asked Wilson quietly, making it clear that he meant Larue's excellent chassis. At the same time, much louder, Cuddy said, "Dr. Larue, thank you so much for your help. Is there anything else we can do for you before you go?"

There was a brief pause, and Larue spoke as if Wilson were the only one present. "On second thought, maybe it was for the best," she said, with a wicked grin House actually rather liked. "I don't know if I could take dealing with this on a regular basis. You two...have _fun_. Not that I have _any_ doubts that you'd do that _anyway_." She flashed one more grin at them, and then turned around and withdrew in a manner that could not have been termed a retreat in any universe whatsoever. House (and Wilson) watched her go, and if House was not mistaken he detected just a hint of wistfulness in Wilson's gaze. Not that he minded; it wasn't like Wilson was gay, after all.

"There goes a pair of breasts as great as any I have ever seen," House said contemplatively. Cuddy turned to look at him, eyebrows raised, and House made a faux-apologetic face at her. "Yes, sorry, including yours." He paused to make it clear that he was examining her cleavage, then said, "Though it's close."

"So do you two want to tell me what _that_ was about?" Cuddy asked after a second.

House watched out of the corner of his eye as Wilson buried his face in his file folders, and grinned at Cuddy. "She strike you as the persistent type?"

Cuddy didn't have to actually say yes.

"Well, she is," House continued. "Was going all single-girl-hunter-mode on poor Jimmy here while he was still in post-divorce weakness." And now it was time for the big finish. "So we pretended to be involved to get her to leave him alone."

Cuddy's expression really should have been framed. House wished for his camera phone, but there was no way he'd be able to dig it out in time. "And this... _worked_?" Cuddy asked.

"Well... yeah," House said. What did she think he was, some kind of amateur?

With the air of someone who doesn't want to be told if she's wrong, Cuddy said, "And... there's really nothing."

"All an act, I swear," House told her, doing his very best sincere face. Once you could fake sincerity, you really sort of had it made. Cuddy turned to Wilson, who shrugged at her. Fortunately Jimmy had a well of real discomfort to draw on, because Cuddy was pretty good at telling when he was completely faking it. It was just too bad for her that this particular discomfort wasn't coming from what she thought it was coming from, and House wasn't about to enlighten her.

"Well, it did work," Wilson told her.

For a second it looked like Cuddy was going to say something else, but then she seemed to come to a decision and turned to walk away. House noted with satisfaction that she wasn't just muttering about not really wanting to know, she also had a hand pressed to her forehead as she did it. His work was done, at least for the day; Ace Gunner had been once more defeated and Cuddy was in retreat.

Once she was gone, House turned to look at Wilson and offered, "Well, it was true at the time."

Wilson smiled, shook his head, and headed for the door.


End file.
